Landslide
by scarletite
Summary: If the landslide was going to bring her down, well, Santana would fall ready and willing if that meant that Brittany would be there to catch her.


**Disclaimer: **I do not own Glee, and any credit for characters, places, people and plot events go to their respective owners.  
><strong>Warning(s): <strong>Nothing specific.  
><strong>Spoilers: <strong>2x15, Sexy; the Landslide scene.**  
>Summary: <strong>If the landslide was going to bring her down, well, Santana would fall ready and willing if that meant that Brittany would be there to catch her.

Sorry for those of you that were expecting an update on Mad World. This was written for my new project on Tumblr, where I'm drawing inspiration through my iTunes library. This is the first of a series of fanfiction that I hope to have published; though I have 1885 songs in my iTunes library at the moment, so it may take a while.

Landslide

Santana Lopez does not remember a life before Brittany Pierce, well, not a true life at any rate. Before she met Brittany in eight grade—before the blonde moved from her home in Amsterdam—she had been a bully in a completely different way; she got into fights, got suspended, beat up anyone who dared look at her funny. Though many of her targets were the same now, with Brittany at her side, a few touches to her arm, a soft mumble from the girl's lips, had her backing down with nothing more than a few harsh words.

Perhaps that's where it all began, with Brittany. Meeting her, befriending her, the constant sleepovers and maintaining the friendship that both of them swore would never end. From the very first moment she stood up for Brittany in front of the class, took Puck down a few pegs for insulting her odd accent born from her Dutch roots, that had marked the beginning of her wall's descent. Never before Brittany would she have cried, would she have hurt or feared, she would have picked herself up and kicked the asses of everyone who dared even meet her eyes.

Santana has always dedicated herself to protecting Brittany from harm, shielding her from the jeers and the insults, and hurting anyone that ever dared to hurt her. She knew when she started high school that she would have to be a cheerleader, that they both would, if they were to be safe. And so, like a shepherd and her sheep, she had thrown herself up the social ladder, bringing Brittany along with her like a towboat after a barge. It wasn't easy, but it was all that they had anymore.

In the end, perhaps it became more about protecting herself from hurt than it did Brittany. She made out with guys at parties, go drunk, did what she had to do to protect her reputation as a badass, a cheerleading badass. She knew that Brittany wasn't easily hurt, that the girl could take care of herself, but Santana had always been a bit more fragile; after all, Brittany's always been the one to pick her up in the past.

Still, she did her duties, became who social expectancies made her, became what some had dubbed a colossal bitch. That part didn't both her, rather, it was the wedge that the combined pressures of maintaining her social standing and wallowing in the pits of losersville as a member of glee club drove between her and Brittany that was killing her.

She could not afford to be as free with her affections before, not under such scrutiny, and most days, even their customary pinkie hold went ignored. She started partying more, sleeping with guys she really didn't want to in an effort to deflect the now hawk-like gazes off the target on her and Brittany's back. And that had not been reason enough for Brittany, but Santana could no longer offer up any feasible reason why she ignored the girl in the hallways, why she wouldn't hug her or let them touch in public. Brittany just couldn't understand social pressure, the girl was so damn free.

They have always been close, and another wedge is driven between them, another nail in the coffin, when Brittany begins to date Artie. At first, she knows it is only to get back at her, because she had denied Brittany one time too many, and it had hurt her. With Artie came less frequent conversations, hugs, meetings, lunches together; with Artie, she had almost lost Brittany completely, or that had been what it felt like. So she tried to remove the problem, time and again.

And she knows that she has been hurting herself, hurting Brittany, with her lies and her betrayals and her vicious attempts at ruining the girl's relationship. But it hurt her, that Brittany had found someone she could pour her affections onto, someone that wasn't Santana, and that Artie was always her top priority now.

Santana's spent quite a few nights in bed, pouring her frustration and tears into her pillow, unable to confess to herself the real reason why she was so angry that Brittany had finally found someone who could truly love her, someone that would hold onto her beyond a casual hook up—someone she knows that Brittany has been looking for almost as long as Santana could remember. But even if she couldn't admit it to herself, let alone to Brittany, deep down, she already knew why.

It came to her, in the burning of her lips after a kiss, in the searing fire that spread through her with even the most innocent of touches. The intoxicating taste, the feel, the beauty that was Brittany; the girl was everything she had ever wanted, needed, and the only one who Santana had ever really felt anything for, anything truly. And that scared her.

Her whole life, Santana had always known that the idea of two girls together was wrong, that it was something most people would not approve of, even before she had learned the word lesbian, she had learned the words dyke and disgusting first. She had known that a lot of people got shunned for loving who they did, saw her fears brought to life when Kurt was bullied right out of McKinley High School, and knew that she could not allow herself to be one of those people. Not if she was going to get her and Brittany out of Lima intact.

It was funny though, how even without knowing it, she had built her whole life, her future around Brittany, built under the assumption that it would always be just Brittany and her. But it wasn't, not now that she had Artie. Now that everything had changed and yet everything had remained the same, in the way that she held Brittany and kissed Brittany and touched Brittany, even though she was dating Artie, yet she did not do it as easily as she once could, could not look Brittany in the eyes knowing she was lying and it _was _cheating, no matter what she said. For a long time, she couldn't even see their future together beyond the possibility of Artie.

And she knew that Brittany was scared too, knew her well enough to know that the questions and the what-ifs and the scenarios had been rising inside the blonde for weeks now. She had been waiting in dreadful anticipation for Brittany to ask her what they were, where they were going, who they were to each other now that she had Artie. And she couldn't answer, because she was just as confused as Brittany was. _What where they, anyway?_

With Brittany, her emotions poured forth in a torrent, unbidden and without restraint. It wasn't easy talking about her feelings, it never had been, but with Brittany she was willing to try, to sort out the convoluted mess of feelings that she had for the girl, born out of a physical relationship that she had sworn would never be anything more. With Brittany, it became a landslide.

And that's why, when they went to Ms. Holliday—one of the few figures in her life that Santana respected, that she would trust with a secret like this—when the suggestion that maybe they should sing a song about what they felt, Santana had known exactly what song she wanted to sing. She just didn't know if she could do it by herself.

But it was time, time to deal with herself and her emotions and Brittany. And with Ms. Holliday sitting beside her, and Brittany with her hands folded in her lap opposite, Santana drew upon all the strength she had collected in the past years to do this.

The soft pluck of the guitar rung loudly in her ears, Ms. Holliday's sweet voice crooned the beginning at her side, and her eyes were riveted to her feet, unable to look up at the face of the glee club looking so piercingly back at them.

She shifted on her stool, took a deep breath, and just laid it all down on the line.

_"—can the child within my heart, rise above," _she felt Brittany's eyes drawn to her, and her own gaze met a set of beautiful, breathtaking blue. _"Can I sail through the changing ocean tides? Can I handle the seasons of my life?"_

Santana smiled, softly, hesitantly, tears in her eyes. She could only hope, wish and imagine that Brittany would understand what she was trying to say to her, the words she didn't think she could ever say out loud. An admission she had been trying to make for years.

_I love you, always._

And if the landslide was going to bring her down, well, she could only hope that Brittany would be standing ready at the bottom to catch her. She would fall, ready and willing, so long as the blonde would always be there for her, to hold her when it got hard. Though she wasn't ready yet, that was her promise.

_I love you, and I'm sorry._


End file.
